Occupational Structure

We are fully alive to the difficulty of adopting any mode of scientific classification which would give general satisfaction. It is for this reason that in the counties and large towns, where we had to distinguish age and sex, we restricted ourselves to an alphabetical arrangement which would give to all, by very simple combinations, the opportunity of making for themselves any arrangement they might prefer. There is so much difference of opinion as to the strict bounds of productive and, unproductive labour, and upon every other element of scientific division, that, in almost any classification we could have adopted, we should have been considered by many to have gone on wrong principles, and to have committed errors of which the extent could not be either tested or corrected. Even for England and Wales, for Scotland, and for Great Britain generally, in the Classification (see Table facing p. 52) which we have thought it right to furnish, in order to give comparative results we have preferred keeping to the general terms used in ordinary parlance, giving the totals engaged in trade and manufacture, in agriculture, in military and naval pursuits, in the learned professions, in other employments of the educated of both sexes, in general manual labour, in the civil service of the Government, in parochial offices, and in domestic service. These, with the independent and the residue, both which latter terms have been already alluded to, and the accidental classes of paupers, lunatics, almspeople, and prisoners, exhaust the total population of this kingdom. We have supplied a key or Table (p.53), showing in detail the occupations of persons included under each head in this classification, so that any person by referring to it may deduct from the totals given the number contributed by any particular head of occupation which he thinks misplaced in the class to which we have assigned it.

We would willingly have given a classification of the occupations of the occupations of the inhabitants of Great Britain into the various wants to which they respectively minister, but in attempting this we were stopped by the various anomalies and uncertainties to which such a classification seemed necessarily to lead, from the fact that many persons supply more than one want, though they can only be classed under one head. Thus, to give but a single instance,-the farmer and grazier may be deemed to minister quite as much to clothing by the fleece and hides as he does to food by the flesh of his sheep and cattle.

One advantage in the classification we have here adopted, and which was not without its influence upon our decision, is, that by a combination of some of the classes which we have here kept distinct, we are enabled to present the; following comparative statement of the numbers included under each of the classes that were separately distinguished in the year 1831, and the same classes in 1841:-

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE OCCUPATIONS OF MALES AGED 20 YEARS AND UPWARDS ENUMERATE IN GREAT BRITAIN IN THE YEARS 1831 AND 1841

GREAT BRITAIN

AGRICULTURE1

Persons engaged in Commerce Trade, and Manufacture, 20 Years of Age and upwards

Capitalists, Bankers Professional, and other Educated Men; 20 Years of Age and upwards

Labourers employed in labour not Agricultural; 20 Years of Age and upwards

Other Males 20 Years of Age, except Servants

Male Servants; 20 Years of Age and upwards

Total Male Population, 20 Years of Age and upwards (exclusive of Army, Navy, and Merchant Seamen)

Occupiers and Labourers, 20 Years of Age, and upwards

1831

1841

1831

1841

1831

1841

1831

18412

1831

18413

1831

1841

1831

1841

ENGLAND.

980,750

961,585

1,278,283

1,682,044

179,983

240,718

500,950

483,918

189,389

317,202

70,629

144,201

3,199,984

3,829,668

WALES.

95,162

80,395

49,444

68,084

5,204

9,714

31,571

43,673

11,180

22,588

2,145

5,804

194,706

230,258

SCOTLAND.

167,145

166,009

236,457

277,507

29,203

32,586

76,191

79,894

34,930

49,539

5,895

13,652

549,821

619,187

ISLES in the BRITISH SEAS.

8,694

7,275

8,108

11,774

1,873

3,157

3,032

2,672

1,838

2,882

1,068

727

24,613

28,487

TOTAL GREAT BRITAIN (exclusive of Army, Navy, and Merchant Seamen.

1,251,751

1,215,264

1,572,292

2,039,409

216,263

286,175

611,744

610,157

237,337

392,211

79,737

164,384

3,969,124

4,707,600

1
See Note (3) at foot of p. 15.

2
This column includes (for the sake of comparison with 1831) Fishermen, Boatmen, and Watermen.

3
The total of Males in 1841 whose occupations are unaccounted for is, in fact, only 276,868 as it includes the following persons, who amount together to 115,343; viz. Males twenty years of age in the Government Civil Service 16,049, Parochial Police and Law Officers 22,942, Almspeople, Pensioners, Paupers, Lunatics, and Prisoners 73,539, and Army and Navy (Half-pay) 2,813.

As we feel that for the purpose of comparing the state of facts exhibited by different districts, or that shown by the whole kingdom at different periods, a mere statement of the numbers comprehended under each head in our classification is insufficient, we have prepared tables which should exhibit the comparative numerical importance of each class upon the principle of per centages, the only convenient mode for such a purpose. We have made the calculation upon two principles;--first, upon the total occupations returned;. and, secondly, upon the whole population. The former shows the relative numerical importance of one industrial class as compared with all the others, the latter as compared with the whole population.

Although we have in our general classification combined under one head trade and manufacture, yet in the following table we have attempted to separate them in order to show the numbers they respectively embrace. In going through every occupation contained in our list for this purpose, we have felt the great difficulty of making such a division satisfactorily; we have therefore given (at p. 58) the names of all occupations included under each division exhibited in the following Abstract, in order to leave the opportunity of correction to those who differ from the view taken by us.

ABSTRACT DISTINGUISHING AS FAR AS POSSIBLE THE NUMBER (WITH THE AGE AND SEX) OF PERSONS ENGAGED IN COMMERCE AND TRADE FROM THOSE ENGAGED IN MANUFACTURE.